OLD PROSPECTOR MOURNED AS DEAD

Manawatu Herald, Volume LV, Issue 4571, 12 November 1935, Page 1

OLD PROSPECTOR MOURNED AS DEAD

MEETS SON AFTER 34 YEARS

The lure of gold has brought together at Tennant’s Creek goldfield, Central Australia, a man who was mourned as dead 34 years ago and his son. They are William and John Garnett. To-day they share a hut on the Hammerback mine.

In 1901 William ~ Garnett left Canowindra, New South Wales, and in time arrived in Central Queensland, where at the sapphire field near Emerald he found gems worth £20,000. Word then reached his wife and son in Canowindra that he had been killed by a fall of earth, and when, newspapers confirmed the story Mrs Garnett broke up the home and toolki the son to Sydney. Losing trace, of his family, Garnett spent his riches in extravagant living. He then tried the tin fields at Maranboy in the Northern Territory' and again met with .success. In the intervening years he has fossicked about the goldfields near Kalgoorlie; has crossed the 1100 miles of desert north-east to Tanami with his donkey team; has come near to perishing for lack of water; has placed Barrow Creek on the map by his discovery of an extensive tin, lead and silver mine; and has discovered a gold mine, 50 miles south of Tennant’s Creek, which is now being developed by the Rothschild Gold Corporation.

Gold, sapphires, tin, lead, silver and copper have contributed to the fortune of £60,000 he has won and spent. The last £ISOO that came his way sufficed for three months in Adelaide, and after that he went back to his donkeys with little save a handkerchief in'his pocket.

John Garnett gravelled to the Hammerback mining camp recently and he saw an elderly man standing near a fire over which hung a billy. Garnett asked if any wortki was offering, and the elderly man replied that there was none. The billy began to boil and he asked Garnett to drink a mug of tea with him.

Both men talked of famous mines and fields, and the elder man mentioned that early in 'the century ho had worked on the sapphire fields of 'Central Queensland. Garnett knew that his father, whom he believed had died about 1900, had worked on those fields, and he asked the elderly man if he had known a "William Garnett in those days. The other man answered: “I reckoxi I was the only William Garnett on those field's.” Explanations followed and then the reunion.